RE: https://www.signalstation.com/best-memories-michael-is-brilliant/
Wherein I find some old fiction of mine from 2011 while looking through my late wife's email. I was looking to spend time with her writing voice and stumbled on my own.
https://www.signalstation.com/best-memories-michael-is-brilliant
[me looking out of the floor to ceiling windows, Dracula disappearing with you into the nights sky]
[drums, electric guitar, and a chorus going "ooohooooh"]
[the skyscrapers outside collapsing in explosions]
Pixies: With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it
Your head will collapse, if there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
[black screen, white gothic font: Written and Directed by BRAM STOKER]
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
The humor arises from the juxtaposition of a familiar and harmless music lyric with an exaggerated and hostile response.
The experienced yuckster, fond of such japes, may also sweeten the experience by imagining Don Henley looking shocked at this outburst. But this is optional. This reaction on Henley's part can be inferred, but is certainly not implied by the joke's text. It requires extrapolation.
"I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac."
Well we all see a LOT OF THINGS, Don Henley!
--
In this joke, I have been putting up with Don Henley's nonsense for quite a while, and his 1984 lead single from Henley's second studio album, Building the Perfect Beast, has set me off, but I am clearly in the wrong.
VO: Cold cobblestone. Heavy wooden furniture. High ceilings with chains dangling. A foul smell and an unsettling atmosphere. THIS is Dracula's natural habitat—a castle in Transylvania.
BUT…
[a light approaches from a hallway]
VO: …he is not alone! This one seems to have found himself…
[a hunched over figure enters, grabs a cockroach off the wall and leisurely eats it]
VO: …a Renfield!
"what if a whale played basketball"
that's what you sound like
like a FOOL
a whale is a careful creature
what if a whale ate a dude, but like... on accident
[footage of Dracula stalking a virgin in a white nightgown, the moment he strikes is replayed thrice in slow motion]
VO: This one has found his prey. The virgin has no time to react as the vampyr sinks his teeth into her neck. He'll drain her fully, all 4.5 liters. This will satiate him for the time being, but by tomorrow night he'll be on the hunt again.
[footage of Dracula levitating in front of a window, tapping it with long nails]
VO: He is looking to attract a mate…
@signalstation
[black and white footage of Dracula eyeing the neck of a blonde woman sitting next to him at the bar. Focus shifts and I'm leaning against a pillar in the background, smoking a cigar]
VO: In a city like this, crime never sleeps. Sleepwalking crime, death around every corner. Most people can't deal with it, it breaks them. But I am already broken. Only the broken can survive in a city like this, where the scum mixes with the res—oh shit! is that fucking Dracula?! oh fuck fuck fu
They say when you die that time slows down so you have plenty of time to narrate your story to those interested.
[Freeze frame on Dracula tearing me in half]
VO: Yup. That's me, getting torn in half by Dracula. I bet you're wondering how I found myself in this particular pickle...
magic table
A librarian, appearing out of nowhere behind the stacks: SHH!
[Quickly scanning through a microfiche, stopping, scrolling, magnifying a photo of a store opening to focus on Dracula standing in the crowd, white face, fangs, cape, being chill while a local luminary wields a giant pair of scissors to cut a ribbon.]
[Quick montage of words from headlines, centered in frame: Blood, Bargains, Grand Opening]
Me (clicking off the microfiche reader): I've got you now, you sonnuvabitch.
oh this? yeah, my bucket list includes "have an Innsmouth-like experience"
I want to go to a small town and marvel at how ugly everyone is, maybe talk to a drunk
I'm 50/50 on whether or not I need a mob to chase me out of town... for me it's mostly about the gawking.
No, ha ha, that's not why I'm in THIS town, ha ha.
Ran a playtest this morning for my RPG project-in-progress, Step Right Up, set in a traveling carnival.
The players are starting to settle into their characters and a couple had their first advancements, which were both narratively interesting.
The mechanics are, so far, working smoothly and we've just started a scenario I haven't playtested at all, so... eager to see what happens next week!
They're up against a cult, a faith healer, and now... a magical imprisonment! Good luck to 'em!
Friends and family gather in the wake of grief, but at some point, folks need to go home, or get back to work. They can't stay forever.
And for weeks, or months, friends will try as hard as they can to check in, or stop by, or make plans... but they can't be there forever.
What's waiting— the forever that's waiting— is the quiet after everyone leaves. That's the heart of it. Where the struggle takes place. Where you find out.
What's left of you.
When the police were here, the day she passed, they took a moment before all the emergency services people left and said "There's going to be a moment, quite soon now, where we're all going to leave and you're going to be all alone. So if there's anything we can do to help you now... anyone we can call... let us know."
I declined.
But they were right about the coming moment, when everyone is gone.
It's a big moment. And it doesn't only happen once.
I've always tried to approach my own art without thinking about why. I want to create art the same way a clam creates a pearl. It just does.
But it was also true that much of it was for her. She was the first person I'd show anything... a doodle, a joke, a music mix. It was also to make her happy because life's not easy. She took meds for depression but I could make her laugh.
I'm still laughing, but mostly in wonder at how it keeps hurting.
Every time I wake up, I'm the only one here.
Every time I come home, I'm the only one here.
I see things at the grocery store she'd like and I don't buy them.
I buy too much food. It's been four months. Hard to buy produce for one.
Been visiting the gym. The doctor. Not sure why. This urge to keep living.
I don't have a belief system where we'll be reunited but I do believe that when I die, I'll stop. The pain will stop but not yet. We're still going.